From Minnie's Ditch To John's Ditching

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Monthly Archives: June 2006

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Tai Lau, 49, was declared dead at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula at 10:48 p.m., according to the Monterey County Sheriff’s Coroner Division.

“The instructor turned to show him something, and he was gone.”

Roth said his understanding was that Lau disappeared from the instructor’s sight off Breakwater Cove in a matter of seconds. He said the instructor took immediate steps to get help when Lau first disappeared shortly after 9 p.m.

Happens every year to the adventures. Several divers die, people get swept off the shoreline and the rare shark bite.

In an emotional outpouring, Cindy Hurley, the grand niece of a wealthy elderly woman who filed a restraining order against her last week, said she loves her great aunt and didn’t steal more than $1 million in cash and precious coins or put her life at risk.

“She accused me of being a thief, and that hurts,” Hurley said.

“I had to sell some gold coins to pay for labor, for taxes, and materials,” Hurley said. “I got a little out of hand. There are some things I probably spent a little more than I should of.” She said she was referring to a $2,000 used motorhome and landscaping tools.

Two masked men robbed a store clerk at gunpoint in Monterey at 7:04 p.m. Friday. Monterey police Sgt. Jeff Jackson said the men pointed a handgun at the clerk of Glass Roots, 765 Lighthouse Ave. The clerk cooperated, Jackson said, while the men took an undisclosed amount of cash, damaged some store property and ran out the back door. The employee waited in a storeroom for the men to leave before calling police.

When a business district sinks as low as the Lighthouse Avenue corridor has, an increase in violent crime is not a surprise.

The man walked into the Washington Mutual Bank, located at 170 Country Club Gate Center at 9:17 a.m., and ordered employees to the floor, police said. He handed a teller a plastic bag and ordered her to fill the bag with the money from her till. Police described the robber as a thin white man in his 20s, between 5 feet 8 inches and 6 feet tall, wearing a black knit cap, dark sunglasses, blue jeans, and a white T-shirt covered by a red warm-up jacket with white piping on the sleeves and zipper area.

The weapon appeared to be a large semi-automatic handgun, police said.

About 4 p.m., the Monterey Fire Department received a report of a pink liquid leaking onto McAbee Beach near Hoffman Street and Cannery Row, firefighters said.

Someone from the Monterey city street department spotted Gilberto Leon Ruelas dumping the paint into a storm drain near Jose’s Mexican Bar and Grill, a block from Cannery Row, said Robert B. Fernández, environmental health specialist for the Monterey County Health Department. Ruelas was performing a painting job at the restaurant.

Ruelas could face a penalty of up to $2,500 for the trouble caused to the city and possible damage to the environment, Fernández said.

Hurley, who is King’s legal caretaker, is suspected of involvement in the theft and resale of King’s gold and silver coins, according to Pacific Grove Police Chief Carl Miller.

Coins and other valuables were recovered Monday when police served search warrants at Hurley’s home, businesses and bank, Miller said.

Police at the time were responding to neighbors’ reports of squalid conditions. Officers searching the house found papers, kitchen appliances and dishes stacked throughout the house, and determined that King was living in unsafe conditions.

A 44-year-old man recently released from the county jail after serving time for stalking a Pacific Grove High School student was found dead Saturday morning in the Asilomar beach track area of Pacific Grove.

Pacific Grove Police said the body of Benjamin Peter Munhall of Monterey was found in the vicinity of the stalking victim’s residence.
Munhall was arrested on June 28, 2005, on suspicion of stalking, child annoyance and prowling. At the time The Herald reported that Munhall had met the girl at a Pacific Grove High School football game in September 2003, when she was 14. A week later he followed her home and gave her a gift. The victim reportedly told her parents about the man, but at that time police didn’t know his identity.